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ROM the beginningf of the seventeenth centufy 
Germans are found scattered all alongf the 
Atlantic coast of North America. Though 
fate had allotted but a secondary role to these 
contemporaries of the Thirty Years* War under 
these skicSf it could not prevent the participation 
of a considerable number of them in the opening of the northern 
half of the New "World and the transplanting of European 
civilization into the American colonies. These earliest represen- 
tatives of American Germandom^ most of whom, after a life full 
of toil and struggle, had found eternal rest, at the time when 
the first purely German settlement was made in Gcrmantown, 
Pennsylvania, constitute a stratum of typical American pioneer 
life. Considering their achievements on the whole, as well as 
such as are individually noteworthy, and also the characteristic 
German traits in their life work, these pioneers compare favor- 
ably with their fellow settlers of early colonial times and therefore 
demand adequate recognition in history. Whether present 
in limited numbers, or living in moderate circumstances, chronic- 
lers do not fail to narrate special incidents of these early 
Germans. The real German work of this epoch covers little 
more than a generation. Of those who accomplished it, some 
were leaders in colonization and officers, a few explorers of the 
country and settlement pioneers. Some of them were the first in 
various callings of new-land management. The majority of 
the Germans, to whom had been assigned tasks of everyday life^ 
were well qualified to perform the fundamental labor of civiliza- 
tion and pioneer economics* Besides solving work-a-day 
problems, the creation of an institution which actually represents 
the beginning of German life on American soil is to be considered 
as not the least of their merits. 



Introductory Note. — This paper is the first attempt to sketch the hegionings 
of German immigration in the North American colonies connectedly and on a 
broad basis. New Netherland being the first conspicuous goal of German influx, 
naturally had to be treated as extensively as the limited space of a preliminary 
outline would permit. The remainder claims neither originality in each and 
every detail, nor completeness. And yet, more than half of what is presented 
in the following pages will undoubtedly be new to readers familiar with the story 
of German life and strife in this country. 

t3] 



VIRGINIA 

Jamestown, Virginia, the cradle of Ang^Io-Saxon America, 
'i& the place, where Germans are met with for the first time. The 
earliest incidents on record are cases of imported contract laborers 
Those sent to Virginia in J 608 were skilled workmen, glass- 
blowers. Captain John Smith, characterizing his men, gives the 
following account of them : " . . labourers . . that neuer 
did know what a dayes workc was : except the Dutch-men and 
Poles, and some dozen other * , **^ In J 620 four mill- 
wrights from Hamburg were sent to the same settlement, to erect 
saw-mills;* in England timber was still sawed by hand.* The 
Germans who settled in the Cavalier colony in larger numbers 
about the middle of the seventeenth century, seem to have been 
attracted chiefly by the profitable tobacco business. The most 
highly educated citizen of Northampton County in 1657 was, 
perhaps, Dr. Georg Nicolaus Hacke, a native of Cologne.* 
Thomas Harmanson, founder of one of the most prominent 
Eastern Shore families, a native of Brandenburg, was naturalized 
October 24, J684, by an act of assembly.^ Johann Sigismund 
Cluverius, owner of a considerable estate in York County, was 
ostensibly also of German birth. * 



^ John Smith, The Generall Historic of Virginia, New -England, the 
Summer Isles, London, 1624, p. 94. 

*The Records of the Virginia Company, ed. S. M. Kingsbury, Washington, 
t906, 1, pp. 368, 372, 428. 

'Edward Eggleston, The Beginners of a Nation, New York, 1896, p. 82. 

*Philip Alexander Bruce, Social Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth 
Century, Richmond, Va., 1907, p. 260. 

^William and Mary College Quarterly, ed. L, G. Tyler, Williams- 
burg, Va., I, 1892, p. J 92. Bruce, Social Life of Va., p. 261, incorrectly gives 
{622 as the year of Harmanson's naturalization. 

« Bruce, p. 260. 

[4] 



NEW ENGLAND 

The first Germans of New England arrived, as far as wc 
know, with the founders of Massachusetts Bay Colony in J 630. 
The proof of this fact, as well as of the influence of this first 
small group, is found in one of the most important pamphlets 
published in connection with New England colonisation, "The 
Planter's Plea*' (1630). This tract, published in London shortly 
after the departure of Winthrop's Puritan fleet, and supposed to 
have been written by John White, the "patriarch of Dorchester^ 
and the '^father of Massachusetts Bay Colony,'' contains the 
following statement : "It is not improbable that, partly for their 
sakes, and partly for respect to some Germans that are gone over 
with them, and more that intend to follow after, even those 
which otherwise would not much desire innovation of themselves, 
yet for the maintaining of peace and unity (the only solder of a 
weak, unsettled body) will be won to consent to some variation 
from the forms and customs of our church . . ." Some of the 
early New England Germans got there via New Amsterdam 5 
we find them in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Boston, etc In J 66 J the 
ship-surgeon Spoeri from Zurich in Switzerland paid a visit to 
Rhode Island. His narrative of New England is one of the few of 
German pen on early American colonial times still extant, ' The 
influence of Germans from afar it was that stimulated the intel- 
lectual life of New England, at a certain period in its heroic 
days : the active German circle about Milton (and the friends of 
Comenius), to which are accredited the first steps in the founding 
of the Royal Society, Haak, Hartlib, and Oldenburg. Among 
the letters exchanged between London (the Continent respectively ) 
and New England, there is one by Oldenburg, written in J 669, 
from which a significant passage deserves to be quoted. Thus 
writes the first secretary of the Royal Society to the younger 
"Winthrop, Governor of Connecticut: "It would contribute much 
to ye increase of ye honor of yt people to keep in their Archives 
ye faithfull records of all their successes, stops, exigencies, from 
their beginnings, and to doe the like kindness for their neighbors, 
as New Netherland or the Main or Georgeana; for ye L^ 

^Americanische Reissbcschreibting Nach den Caribes Insslen Und Nea- 
Engelland. Verrichtet ond aofgesctzt durch Fclix-Christiaui Spoeri, Zurich, J677, 
C5] 



Ploydeiis Plantaon, Maryland, Virgin.; and yc many Islands 
about yt continent, as hath been noted.^^ 

NEW SWEDEN 

In New Sweden, for the foundation and development of 
which Gustavus Adolphus and after his death Oxenstierna had 
taken initial steps on German soil, and the European manage- 
ment of which rested in the hands of a German treasurer and a 
German bookkeeper, there were a few Germans among its 
officials during the seventeen years of its existence (1 638-1 655). 
There were also a number of German colonists, chiefly soldiers ; 
however, according to recent researches these were not as numer- 
ous, as had formerly been supposed. The first governor was 
Peter Minuit from Wesel ; his brother-in-law, Hendrick Huygen 
from Cieves, was commissary during and after Minuit's term of 
office* From J 640- J 643 a young officer, Peter Hollcnder Ridder, 
very likely a German, was at the head of the colony. The last 
factor of New Sweden was Henrich von Elswich, a merchant 
from Lubeck. In the lists of the inhabitants of the settlements, 
Amandus Johnson, the most recent historian of New Sweden*, 
has found but few Germans expressly mentioned as such. The 
greater part of these belonged to the garrisons of the forts, among 
them a few from Hamburg, one from Holstein, one from 
Stralsund, one from Brandenburg, one from Koenigsberg and one 
from Reval. As is obvious, the majority of these men came from 
cities and provinces where Usselinx had visited and worked in 
the interest of his transatlantic colonization scheme.^ ° There 
still remain such as have names unmistakably pointing to 
German origin ; not many ; two or three dozen at the most. 
Accordingly the probable ratio between Germans and Swedes,etc., 
in New Sweden would be J:JO. (This has reference only to the 
Germans coming over with the Swedes; along with the coloni- 
zation of New Netherland, undoubtedly a number of Germans 

* Massachusetts Historical Society, Proceedings, Vol. XVI, 1878, Boston, 
J879, p. 241. 

'Amandus Johnson, The Swedish Settlements on the Delaware. New 
York, I9n, 2 vols. 

^"J. Franklin Jameson, Willem Usselinx. American Historical Association, 
Papers, Vol. II, 1887. 

[6] 



also struck New Swedish territory). Unfortunately Johnson has 
nothing or very little to say about the distribution of the various 
nationalities. The following^ remark is of some importance: 
**The instructions of the officers were written in Swedish, German 
and Dutch. The Dutch and German officers, soldiers and 
settlers were able to converse in Swedish, and they g^radually be- 
came fairly well versed in the language, but all the account 
books and most of the bills preserved to us are written in Dutch 
or German.''^ ^ The Labadists, Dankers and Sluyter, the latter 
a German from W^esel (recte Vorstmann), in search of a place 
of refuge for their sect, longing to leave Europe, traversed the 
colonies from Massachusetts to Maryland, eagerly taking notes, and 
came to the Delaware in 1679. There they met several Germans, 
mostly Holsteiners, especially Otto Ernst Koch, "ia.tc medicus^, 
one of the justices on the Delaware and proprietor of Tinicum 
Island.^* When Pastorius came to Pennsylvania he found "a 
few High Germans , « who had already inhabited this country 
for twenty years, and had become naturalized so to say; these were 
Silesians, Brandenburgers, Holsteiners, Swiss, etc Also one from 
Nuremberg, named Jan Jaquet/'* ^ The latter, Jean Paul Jacquet, 
for years agent of the West India Company in Brazil, after the 
departure of the Swedes, had been made vice-director on the 
South River (as the Dutch called the Delaware in contradistinc- 
tion to the North River, the Hudson). In J 674 he was appointed 
a justice of the court at New Castle.^* 



*^ Johnson, p. 548. 

^* Journal of a Voyage to New York and a Tour in Several of the American 
Colonies in 1679-80. By Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter. Translated by 
Henry C. Murphy, Brooklyn, 1867, p. J74-J87. 

^'F. D. Pastorius, Sichere Nachricht auss America, 1684. Photographic 
Reproduction in M. D. Learned's The Life of Francis Daniel Pastorius, 
Philadelphia, 1908, p. 128. 

**Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey and Delaware, 1630- 
J707. Ed. Albert Cook Myers. New York, J9J2, p. 400. 

[7] 



MARYLAND 

Most of the early German settlers of Maryland came from 
Virginia, New Netherland and New Sweden. The best known 
are the Herrman and Hacke families, and Johann Lederer. 
Atigfustin Herrman, who spent the most important time of his 
life in New Amsterdam, is known as the first surveyor of Mary- 
land and designer of the first map of Lord Baltimore's colony; 
for this work he was granted a large tract of land in Cecil County 
(Bohemia Manor)/ '^ Johann Lederer, a native of Hamburg, 
who immortalized himself as the discoverer of the Virginia 
Valley, was naturalized in J67I. The Labadists during their 
travels in Maryland met a settler named Commegys from Vienna 
and at a plantation "a person who spoke high Dutch ♦ • a 
kind of proctor or advocate in the courts.'' 

CAROLINA 

The first German of renown who set foot on Carolina soil 
was Johann Lederer. This was in J 670. In the following year, 
perhaps in connection with his exploring tours, the colony 
''received a great addition to its strength" from Dutch people of 
New York. According to Bernheim,^* who claims he has his 
information from the old chroniclers, the majority of these Dutch 
were Lutherans. This, if true, would partly explain the disap- 
pearance of a number of German Lutherans from New York 
about this period. 



**Thc best monograph on Herrman is H. A. Rattermann's in Deutsch- 
Amerikanisches Magazin, I, 1886, p. 202 ff. 

*'G. D. Bemheim, History of the German Settlements and of the 
Lutheran Church in North and South Carolina. Philadelphia, 1872, p. 64-65. 

[8] 



NEW NETHERLAND 

Of all early North American colonies. New York only 
and solely possessed a German population numerically noteworthy 
and almost within reach of exact research. This province and 
the city by the same name, prior to J 664 New Netherland and 
New Amsterdam — it mast be remembered, however, the former 
at a time comprised greater or smaller portions of what were 
later Connecticut and New Jersey — was the chief goal of German 
immigration during the middle third of the seventeenth century. 

The first white settler within the limits of the present State of 
New York was Henrich Christiansen from the German city of 
Cleves.^' And he, the very first of all German- American pio- 
neers, it was who continued and completed the work begun by 
Henry Hudson ; while the latter is looked upon as the discoverer, 
the former must be considered the explorer of the Hudson River 
territory.^* His eleven trips to the mouth of the Hudson, 
following almost immediately Hudson's voyage of discovery, 
represent our present transatlantic traffic in its incipiency. He 
built the first dwellings and prepared the road to the chief source 
of income of the colony, the fur trade. His tragic death deprived 
him not only of the fruits of his labor, but also of a good 
deal of his renown after death: no place bears his name.'" 

The beginnings of civil order and organized work of civili- 
zation on Manhattan Island are connected with the name of 
Peter Minuit. This first general-director of New Netherland, 
apparently of French descent, had come from Wesel ; however 
his personality and his official life show the imprints of Dutch 
culture^" (in New Netherland as well as at a later period in 
New Sweden). Under Minuit's leadership the trading-post, the 
rendezvous of traders and hunters, which heretofore had been 
obliged to get its supply of provisions from ^^Patria," became a 
plantation in a twofold sense of the word, a self-supporting agri- 
cultural colony. Among his officials and soldiers, among the 
traders and farmers we find Germans. 

*' Joannes de Laet, Nicuwe Wercldt, Ley den, J 625, p. 88. 
**NicIaes a Wasienaer, Historisch VerhacI, Amsterdam, 1624, p. 85. 
^***No Mans Land" formerly was called Hendrick Christiaensen's Eyiand. 
'"Minuit writes ^'good Dutch though with distinctly German spelling.*' 
A. J.F. van Laer, Van Rensselaer Bowier Manuscripts, Albany, 1908, p. 31. 

[9] 



During: Mmuxt's administration Rensselaerswyck was found- 
ed near Fort Orange (Albany), under the patroonship of Kiliaen 
van Rensselaer and his partners. The human material which 
formed the foundation of the present State capital, may not have 
been the worst that came to the new world, since it was selected 
by the cautious merchant of Amsterdam himself. With some 
degree of certainty the native places of about one and a half 
hundred adult male immigrants are ascertained — out of a sum total 
of not quite 250 — reaching here between J 630 and J 653. More 
than one half came from the provinces of the Netherlands (the 
Spanish dominions included). The Germans constitute some- 
what less than one fourth. The Scandinavians and English 
together (including one Irishman and one Scotchman) are about 
one seventh. One Frenchman and one Croatian complete this 
heterogeneous crowd." 

At the close of the fourth decade, when "settlers of excellent 
quality" (Fiske) flocked into New Netherland, the current of 
German immigration becomes visible in a marked degree. This 
influx, continuing for over a quarter of a century, furnishes the 
first perceptible group of German-American population. Their 
assimilation took place within the scope of Dutch colonizing ; the 
Thirty Year's War lent it the dreary background. At that time 
the attention of the German countries had been roused in the 
direction of New Netherland. Ussclinx' recruiting visits to the 
cities of the North and Baltic Sea Coasts from Emden to Reval, 
were not in vain, nor had he appealed to German princes and 
conventions unsuccessfully. New Sweden, for which money and 
men were wanted, lay in the same course as New Netherland. 
Similarly as John Maurice of Nassau, governor of Brazil, in J 637 
advised the Dutch West India Company to settle German exiles, 
seeking refuge in Holland, in South America,^ ^ the Count of 
Solms had considered the idea of settling his subjects driven out 
of the County of Solms by the war, in New Netherland.** The 

"New York State Education Department, New York State Library, 
Van Rensselaer Bowier Manuscripts. Translated and edited fay A. J. F. van 
Laer, Archivist, Albany, J908, p. 805-846. 

'^Gispar Barlaeus, Brasilianische Geschicbte, Cleves, 1659, p. 136. 137. 

* 'Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, 
ed. E. B. O'Callaghan, Albany, Vol. I, 1856, p. 118. 

[10] 



revocation of the far trade monopoly in J 639, followed by a 
revival in New Nethcrland affairs, drew many a German from 
the Hansa cities to Manhattan* 

A means to approximately estimate the German element of 
New Amsterdam is found in some sort of semi-official statistics* 
Although these statistics do not embrace the total population, a 
ratio can be deduced. This means is the Marriage Records of 
the Reformed Dutch Church, which have fortunately been 
preserved/* This list contains for the years J 639- J 664, the 
period of Dutch rule, the names and native places of 626 immi- 
grants. Of these, with a certain degree of definiteness, t23 are 
found to be of German origin (among them J 2 German couples). 
Accordingly the Germans would amount to not quite one fifth 
of the number of immigrants.^ ^ 

The center of German life, flourishing more and more, as 
years went on, was, since the close of the forties, the Lutheran 
congregation of New Amsterdam, which beginning with the 
fifties more or less successfully combated the Dutch Calvinistic 
intolerance. Leader and adviser of the German Lutherans was 
Paul Schrick of Nuremberg, a well-to-do merchant. It was he 
who '* became a chief promoter of this work,'' ending in the 
calling of the first Lutheran pastor.^" The earliest records of this 
Lutheran organization, the nucleus of St. Matthews Church of 
to-day, have disappeared. So much we learn from contemporary 
documents : the leading personages active in building up the con- 
gregation and in the struggles with the predominant Reformed 

** Records of the Reformed Dutch Church in New Amsterdam and 
New York Marriage Records from U December, 1639, to 26 August, 1 80 J. 
Ed. Samuel S. Purple, M. D., New York, 1890. 

^^In the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 
the Year 1909, Washington 1911, Ruth Putnam (The Dutch Element in the 
United States, p. 205-2 J 8) examines the same source, with regard to its ethnical 
composition, arriving at figures, however, which are open to criticism. Her 
statement shows 16 Germans in the first hundred marriage applicants, 1639-1643? 
in the second hundred she finds 9 (I find 11); in the third hundred 9 (instead of 
J6) ; in the fourth 10 (instead of 17^; in the fifth 6-8 (instead of 12i ; in the sixth 
5-6 (instead of 19). Hence about 58 Germans, instead of 91, according to my 
figures, from the close of 1639 to the middle of 1659. 

^^Ecclesiastical Records, State of New York. Published by the State 
under the supervision of Hugh Hastings, State Historian, Albany, Vol. I, 1901, 
p. 429. 

[11] 



Dutch Church were Germans, the pastors, Gutwasser, Fabricius 
and Arens were all Germans (with the exception of a Swedish 
supply preacher), the majority of the members of the congreg^a- 
tion were Germans" % the German language was looked upon as 
evidence of membership" % it is not improbable that at times 
German was used during service.^' 

As is the case to this very day, the early Germans of New 
York were a medley of all classes of society. There we find the 
enterprising man of fortune and the adventurous fellow without 
means, merchants and mechanics, professional men, farmers, 
sailors, soldiers, servants. These people hailed from all parts of 
German speaking Europe, even from Switzerland, Austria and 
the Baltic provinces of Russia. Three quarters of them were 
Low-Germans, more or less related to the Dutch in tongue and 
custom, and therefore readily at ease and at home. In these 
audacious and world-wise, industrious and sober-minded men 
from the German sea-coast, from East Friesland, Oldenburg, 
Sleswick-Holstein, Hanover, Westphalia, and the Rhenish 
countries, there glowed the same spirit and strove the same vigor 
which had brought maritime pursuits and commerce of the 
Hanseatic League to such prominence and had raised their 
citizens to such an eminent state of power and culture. Impor- 
tant beyond their number these Germans seem when the 
manifold achievements and merits of their chief representatives 
or of certain sets are considered. The specifically German 
qualities proved particularly momentous in aiding the formative 

*' The list of the first members, as far as it can be reconstructed, ihows 
28 names, mostly heads of families. There is documentary proof of 12 being 
Germans: Paul Schrick, Martin Hoffmann, Christian Nissen, Hermann 
Eduardsen, Lorenz Andriesen (Van Buskirck), Lucas Eldersen, Hermann Jansen, 
Johann Cornelisscn, David Wessels, Heinrich Heinrichs, Meinrad Barentsen, 
Hermann Schmeemann. Matthias Capito, first signer of the Lutheran petition 
of October 10, 1657, without question was German. Of the remaining petitioners 
as far as they w^ere not mentioned above, Jochcm Beeckman undoubcdtly like all 
the other Beekmans in New Netherland was of German origin ; Claes de Wit 
according to some writers came from Westphalia. Hans Drepcr, Andrics Rees, 
George Hanel do not seem to be either HoUandish or Scandinavian. For list of 
petitioners see: Ecclesiastical Records, State of New York, p. 406. 

* * Ecclesiastical Records. State of New York, p. 429. 

** At least one is justified to infer this from a passage in Charles Wooley's A 
two years Journal in New York, London, I70I, p. 84-85. 

[12] 



work of the ruling Dutch-English stock. A German trait was their 
religious sentiment, the loyahy to Lutheran creed, which wrested 
the first concessions of tolerance from official Calvinism? a 
German trait the Hanseatic spirit of enterprise in affairs great 
and small, German their interest in the welfare of the community, 
their tendency toward progressiveness and independence, which 
shook the oppressive bars of bureaucratic tutelage and patri- 
archal privileges. 

*'Perhaps no class among the early residents of New Amster- 
dam was more distinguished for the rapid strides they made to 
wealth and social distinction, in their adopted home, than those 
who came from the old commercial cities in Germany. The most 
prominent representative of this class— which included among 
others, the heads of the Van der Beecfc, Santford, Ebbing, Lcisler 
and Schrick families,— was Nicholas De Meyer, a native of 
Hamburg/''" In this list Augustin Herrman is omitted, per- 
haps the most remarkable among these prosperous merchants. 
The story of his life and deeds reveals interesting intercolonial 
relations, both political and economic. By marriage he was 
related to Schrick and Hacke. 

Leader of the progressive citizens in their fight against 
Kieft and Stuyvesant was (with Cornells Melyn) a German, 
Jochem Petersen Kuyter, from Ditmarschen. Among the of- 
ficials of the provincial and municipal government we find (in 
addition to those already mentioned) several Germans, viz., Ulrich 
Lupoid from Stade, Gysbert Opdyck from Wesel, Willem Beek- 
man, descendant of a Cologne family, born in Holland. The 
last-named, as also Nicolaus Meyer, was under English rule 
mayor of the city of New York. 

The ship-surgeon and colonial physician of German origin 
figures widely in New "World records and relations of the six- 
teenth and seventeenth centuries. We also meet at least a dozen 
of them in the early days of North America ; in New Nether- 
land Hans Kierstede from Magdeburg, Paul van der Beek from 
Bremen, "Wilhelm Trophagen from Lemgo, and others. A man 

3 "The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, New York. Vol. 
IX, 1878, p. 13. (Contributions to the History of the ancient families of New 
York. By Edwin R. Purple). 
[13] 



1 



of judicial learningf was Hicronymus Ebbingp from Hamburg;, son- 
in-law of the Dutch historian Johannes de Laet. Tillman van 
Vleck from Bremen was a notary public at New Amsterdam, 
German by birth were the schoolmasters Jacob Joosten at Esopus- 
Kingston and Engelbert Steinhausen, at Bergen. Hans Stein^ 
apparently also a German, was licensed to keep school at New 
Amsterdam. The first teacher of the Latin school was Alex- 
ander Carl Curtius from Lithuania. One or the other of the 
ministers of the Reformed Church seems to have been of German 
birth or descent. 

Of course, one does not g:o wrongf looking for Germans in 
the sound middle class, among mechanics and smaller business- 
men. Three of the most frequently mentioned old New Yorkers 
of this category are the tavernkeeper "Sergeant'' Litscho from 
Coeslin in Pomerania," the blacksmith Burger Jorissen from Hirsch- 
berg in Silesia,** and the cordwainer Johann Harberdink from 
Bocholt in Westphalia, in whose honor John Street, New York, 
bears its name and from whose legacy the Dutch Reformed 
Church draws a princely revenue. 

Quite a number of families flourishing in this country to- 
day — as is obvious from one or the other previous instance — date 
back to the unassuming German immigrants of the New Ncther- 
land epoch, the German Knickerbocker stock. Good old names 
among them, no longer recognizable as German, as their bearers 
have for generations divested themselves of everything German, 
families which have intermarried with the best of the continent; 
so for instance the Beekman, Brower, van Buskirck, Bussing, 
Carmer, Ditmars, Dyckman, Hoffman, Kierstede, Low, Messier, 
Meyer, van Norstrand, Opdyke, Remsen, Schoonmaker, Schure- 
man, Swits, Ten Broeck, Traphagel, Wessel and Zabriskie 
families. 



"J. H. Innes, New Amsterdam and its People, New York, t902, p. 267 ff. 
^Innes, p. 223 H. 

[14] 



SUMMARY 

The conclusions to be drawn from this treatise sug^gfest a rc- 
aff angfement of the first century of German-American history ; 

\ . Sporadic appearance of Germans in the North American 
colonies, beginning^ with 1608. 

2. Continuity in German immigration, regular arrivals in 
New Netherland and distribution among the neighboring 
colonies, intercolonial relations, first attempt at organization, 
J637-J664. 

3. Beginning of sectarian immigration and founding of a 
distinct German settlement in Germantown, Pennsylvania, J683. 

4. The great tide of German immigration, setting in with the 
exodus of the "Palatines,'' in J 709. 



[15] 



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